


Empty Hearts on Fire

by hops



Category: the adventure zone
Genre: Friends to Lovers to Enemies to Lovers, Multi, postcanon, the adventure bang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-17 07:40:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21050729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hops/pseuds/hops
Summary: “I’ve been thinking,” Lup starts quietly, then falls silent, drifting back into her own thoughts.“What about?” he asks.Lup purses her lips, turns to him, trails her thumb over his cheek.“Do you ever miss Lucy?”





	Empty Hearts on Fire

**Author's Note:**

> hi im fashionably late for the adventure bang 
> 
> i would be completely remiss not to thank jess/tinwoman for her inspiration/influence on this piece. this one's for u, my friend

Lup lays entangled with Barry on top of their sheets, the window wide open to the summer air they hoped would cool so they could sleep comfortably. Despite the heat, they don’t separate. Some nights being close seems vital, their bodies and hearts inseparable. 

Lup yawns against Barry’s chest. A hand comes up to twirl a tuft of chest hair around her index finger. “I’ve been thinking,” she starts quietly, then falls silent, drifting back into her own thoughts. 

“What about?” he asks. 

“About… before? Y’know. The good ol’ days.” 

Barry furrows his brow. “I mean, depends on what you consider good.” 

“Don’t be an ass,” Lup sighs, but she laughs all the same. 

“What about before?” 

Lup purses her lips, turns to him, trails her thumb over his cheek. 

“Do you ever miss Lucy?” 

* * *

The idea of it makes him recoil, for awhile anyway.  _ Missing  _ Lucretia, someone with whom he’d entrusted so much, who had taken so much from him, who left him to wander the world as a shadow, searching for his wife.

No, he doesn’t miss her. He doesn’t miss what they’d shared and all she had taken from them. He doesn’t miss how much he loved her and how it’d all come crumbling down. He doesn’t miss the way he’d ignored her protests to his plan. He doesn’t miss the feeling of her between them in their bed. He doesn’t miss her soft breathing, her eyelashes tickling his cheek, her quiet laughter upon waking. 

He doesn’t miss her. He doesn’t let himself. Not after what she did. 

Not after what they’d done.

* * *

Lup says they’ll host family dinner without asking.

He takes his seat across from Lucretia at the table and sips his beer. He nods to be polite, but ignores her thereafter, as usual. But it stirs within him again, the restless churn of his stomach, the insistent circling of his thoughts. He doesn’t miss her. He looks at her as she’s speaking and doesn’t hear what she’s saying. But he  _ does  _ hear the honeyed sound of her voice, how it’s gotten richer since having been eternally nineteen; how her laugh demands his attention, just as it always has. She shifts and her blouse reveals her neck and shoulder. 

His jaw tenses. He thinks about that girl across the table on their ship. Thinks about how he would sit beside Lup at dinner, hand sliding furtively up her thigh, both of them burning for her but not sure how to say so. Thinks about the way, all that time ago, he’d caught her gaze and smiled and hoped to every god of every plane they’d left behind that it’d been hungry enough for her to  _ know.  _

He looks away from her now, feeling those embers starting to glow in his stomach. He sips his beer once more. Picks at his food. Looks at Lup. And again, a spark, something catching. Lucy laughing. 

He slips his hand onto Lup’s thigh. 

* * *

Lup and Barry fuck like they’re young again; starving, groping, frantically breathing Lucretia’s name as they come, clinging to each other, suddenly breathless. 

She wakes from a fitful sleep in the morning, hopes a shower will settle her down. It doesn’t. Instead, Barry joins her. 

And then, days later, she’s alone, still thinking of Lucretia. Of their hands sliding soft over her skin. Of Lucretia’s mouth on her own. On Barry’s. Of the soft skin of Lucretia’s neck, and how badly she had wanted to cross the table and taste her as Barry watched. And then she’s burning in their bed, just as she had decades ago, biding her time.

* * *

“Let’s go see her,” Lup suggests with a sly smile. Barry shakes his head and says nothing. “Let’s go see her on our break, c’mon—” 

“We shouldn’t,” Barry says, instead of  _ I can’t.  _ He can’t make up his mind on where he stands; he wants to see her, he can’t stand the thought of her, he longs for her constantly. 

And then, like it’s nothing, Lup has opened a tear to Lucretia’s office. She holds her arms out expectantly, waiting for Barry to step through. 

“We shall,” Lup says, nose upturned. Barry sighs and steps through the tear, disregarding the momentary shock of being jerked around through spacetime. “Lucy-Lu!” Lup sings, throwing both arms up in the air. Barry can’t help but smile for a moment, just before he sees Lucretia. He freezes, his face gone hot, throat tight, and looks away. “How are you? How’s work?” 

They chat for a few minutes, Lucretia obviously taken off guard. Barry still can’t bring himself to say something now; he feels like a coward, breathing Lucretia’s name to Lup in bed, but unable to utter it to her face. 

“You should come for dinner tonight,” Lup finally says, elbows on Lucretia’s desk, hands on her cheeks. Barry balks at the unexpected question. Lup doesn’t meet his gaze. “It’s been a while, we should catch up.” 

Lucretia opens her mouth but nothing comes out. She looks stricken. Still, Lup doesn’t retract her invitation, waiting for someone else to blink first. 

“I— I— I would want to be sure that my presence is… Lup, I’m not sure that—” 

Barry clears his throat. He clenches his fists to keep his hands from shaking. “You should come, Lucretia.” 

Lup grins delightedly “See! Now you have no excuse. I’ll have to see if I have some grapefruit juice for cocktails!” 

“Lup?” Lucretia asks, her mouth poised for a question that doesn’t come. 

“It’s just dinner, babe, don’t worry so much.” 

“But—” 

Lup lays her hands flat on Lucretia’s desk and leans forward. “Is it the  _ don’t  _ or the  _ worry so much?  _ We miss you, and we make bomb-ass food. Come over.” 

But Lucretia’s looking over Lup’s shoulder, eyes locked with Barry. A hot pang of something foreign strikes his gut. When Lup turns to him, he just nods and looks away, his heart ablaze. 

Lup’s voice drops low as she leans forward to murmur in Lucretia’s ear. “It’s not just me, babe. Promise.” Lup catches sight of Lucretia’s throat twitching as she gulps. She bops the tip of Lucretia’s nose and says “How about seven?” 

* * *

Lucretia dresses slowly, methodically, for her trip down to Lup and Barry’s for dinner. She doesn’t know whether to pack an overnight bag; she picks up her bag of infinite holding, thinking of the look on Barry’s face when their eyes met. She packs a change of clothes, just in case. 

She stops, sits down on the edge of her bed, and lets out a long, tired sigh. Is this wishful thinking? Is she just going to be disappointed? It’s been so long, she can’t help but get her hopes up. She pulls her slacks on over modest panties, tucks a blouse into the waist, drapes a robe over herself, and slips on her shoes. 

She takes the teleportation circle instead of her usual cannon ball because she’s too nervous to trust her stomach. Then she’s standing at their door, holding a bottle of wine, feeling more unprepared and terrified of her own heart and all of their mistakes than ever before. She takes a deep breath in, and before she can exhale, Lup is at the door, ushering her inside, enthusiastic and wild as ever. Lucretia is nearly knocked sideways with the sudden impulse to kiss her, but she does nothing. She just listens to Lup, smiles, nods, takes a seat in the kitchen, waits for Barry to come downstairs. 

Barry. Her heart hammers with worry and regret. Maybe this was a mistake, coming here. Listening to her heart that wants what her mind is in no way ready for. Barry comes downstairs and Lup continues on like the earth hasn’t just shifted beneath their feet. She shakes a grapefruit cocktail for Lucretia. 

Barry sits down at the table across from Lucretia, lips pursed, eyes looking everywhere but at her. A sudden rush of bravery swells in her. 

“Hi, Barry,” Lucretia says softly, his name semi-sweet in her mouth. He takes a small breath, glances up and into her eyes. “Thanks for having me.” 

Barry takes pause. “Any time.” 

She wonders if he means it or if he’s just being polite.

* * *

Lup goes all out making dinner. She had thrown herself into the kitchen and channeled her worry about the state of Lucretia and Barry’s relationship, if they’ll be able to make it through without the old, terrible tension that seemed to crop up every now and again, and made all their old favorites. Lup has faith this time, that Barry misses Lucretia enough to want to work through it, or at least give her the time of day, now. Barry wants to see Lucretia. Lup is banking on that much. 

There’s way too much food for three people, but they’ll go through the leftovers. Lucretia compliments her on the meal, on the steak that Lup makes just right. Maybe she’ll get that nostalgia going. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking. Maybe this entire thing was a terrible idea and it’s going to crash and burn, but fuck it. What else can she do but this? 

Lucretia and Barry are talking, and at least there’s that, a few awkward hiccups here and there, but nothing Lup couldn’t smooth over with a grin and a goof. They talk about family, about what they’ve been up to, about work for the Raven Queen and life on the moon. They talk about Angus, especially, the pride of them all. They don’t talk about before, but that’s okay. They don’t have to right now. 

When they’ve finished eating, Barry excuses himself to the porch, and to Lup’s surprise, Lucretia stands up to follow him. 

“I just want to talk to him for a second, is that…?” Lucretia asks, looking at the door, then back at Lup. 

“Yeah! No, it’s cool, go, I’ll— I’ll get dessert,” Lup says quickly, not wanting her to change her mind. As the door closes behind Lucretia, Lup brings her plate to the sink, a hopeful smile on her face.

* * *

The sun finally dips below the horizon and offers a nighttime reprieve from the heat. “Do you mind if I…” Lucretia starts, stepping out onto the porch. He nods and she sits beside him on the swing, tucked as close as she can be to the armrest, as if she’d unconsciously left space for Lup. 

She remembers a time when this— this summer night, this porch, these two souls  _ meant  _ to be entwined with hers— had been the future she had dreamed of. The life ahead where they could stop running. The finish line. She feels as if the emptiness growing inside her could swallow her whole. At least then she might disappear. 

Barry is silent beside her, looking out over the lawn. He surveys the garden, left a little unkempt by the summer heat and the lack of will to step out into it to trim and weed. A small sigh. 

“Could we leave it at the door?” 

Lucretia’s hand grips the armrest, not looking at him. She’s scared of what he means. What he might say. “What?” 

Another huff in frustration with himself. “Lucretia… I…” She looks over at him and he’s hanging his head, hunched over with his elbows on his thighs. He pushes his glasses up. “I can’t just forget about what happened, but I… we… We can put it aside for now. We can…” 

_ Can we? _ she wants to ask. Her heart aches. She can only stare at him, watching as he purses his lips, looks down at his folded hands between his knees. 

“Like in there?” Lucretia asks instead, motioning in the direction of the kitchen. “How we act like nothing before the Day ever happened? I don’t think that’s exactly sustainable.” 

Barry heaves a big sigh. “No, it’s not. But I didn’t want to make it…” 

“It’s weird. It’s okay.” 

“Is it though?” Barry asks, suddenly looking vulnerable. “Or are you still angry with me?” 

Lucretia looks out over the yard. Is she still angry? It’s hard to say. Part of her wants to turn and walk back inside where Lup is, where she doesn’t have to have this conversation; part of her is angry with herself for coming here and putting herself in this position; part of her is so tired of the rage that lives inside her after what they’d done. What she’d done. She just wanted it out. 

“Yes, I’m still angry. And you’re still angry with me. I know that,” she states plainly. 

She can’t bring herself to look up at him; it would just be too much. There’s a long silence that fills the space between them with a concrete thickness. 

“I feel like it’s supposed to be time to forgive and…” 

A bitter laugh leaves Lucretia’s mouth before she can stop it. “Forget?” she asks, shaking her head. The weight of all that shame comes down around her once more. “No, I wouldn’t ask that of you.” That’s the thing about his forgiveness: she knows she won’t get it, and she doesn’t particularly want it in the first place. 

“I spent a long time alone, Lucretia. I had all that time— the time I could  _ remember,  _ anyway— to think about this.” 

Lucretia closes her eyes, remembering that lonely decade. Lup and Barry were the only ones who could really understand the scope and stakes of that solitude. And even so, what could be said now that she hadn’t already said? 

“And so did I,” she reminds him. “And Lup did too. And it’s over now.” 

“It  _ is  _ over now, huh?” Barry says with an empty chuckle. “I wish I could just sort out…” 

She feels his eyes on him, but she can’t look up. 

“She misses you,” he says quietly. He raises his head to watch a single moth beating helplessly around the porchlight. 

Her throat feels so tight, it’s hard to even draw breath. Lup missing her isn’t enough. Lucretia misses them. Both of them. And as she steals another glance at him now, his hands rest at his sides, flat on the wood slats of the swing. They sway silently, looking out into the night. She wants to tell him. And with that want comes the upswell of all her hope; every memory she’s buried, every moment she’s missed, it all comes bubbling up and overflows. But she sits with it, all of it, pouring out inside her, and says nothing at all. 

“I, uh…” Barry sighs, takes off his glasses, rubs his eyes. There’s something else, something burning that she can  _ feel. _ He rests there for a moment, glasses held loosely between his fingers. “I miss you, too, Lucretia.” 

She feels frozen there, neither of them looking at each other, breath shaking audibly as it leaves her. He turns, eyes burning into her, and she loses her breath entirely. An entire history hangs in the space between their bodies. Maybe there was no forgiveness to be had, no conversation that could make it different now. Just fearlessly forging ahead to a future where they’d be able to build something new. 

She turns, eyes trained on her hands folded in her lap. And Barry leans in, head turned, lips parted; his hot breath splashes against her skin. Her heart hammers so wildly she’s sure he can hear it over the roar of the cicadas in the trees. She tries to lift her hand, but it trembles so hard that she sets it back down. He hovers there for a moment, so painfully close, and she  _ aches  _ for every last thing she’s been denying herself for years now. She wants this. Plans, past and future, be damned. 

Before she can kiss him, he inhales and pulls away. They sit there in the leaden silence, their desire sitting molten inside them. Eventually he retreats inside and leaves here alone there on the swing in the summer dark, watching the moths, a few more now, flitting around the porchlight.

* * *

Lucretia finds Lup reading quietly in the kitchen, dessert plates made up for them beside her. 

“Thank you,” Lucretia says softly, heart in her throat. Lup looks up from her book and smiles sweetly. Warmth spreads through her, starting in her gut and radiating out in every direction. She wonders what Lup would have done if she’d been out on the porch, too. Would Lup have kissed her? Would she have kissed Lup? She brings her focus back to the confections on the table. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“Sure I did. Gotta take care of my favorite girl.” 

Lucretia swallows. Nods. Sits down across from Lup at the table. Lemon bars, like Taako always made on the Starblaster. It feels like home as she takes a bite. 

Lup returns to her book. Beneath the table, she brushes Lucretia’s foot with her own. When Lucretia’s head jerks up to look at her, she sticks her tongue out, never once taking her gaze from the page. 

“You wanna stay tonight?” 

Lucretia freezes, her breath suspended in her throat. “W-what?” she finally manages to say. 

“In the guest room. It’s the weekend, stay a while. We can go out for lunch in town tomorrow at that little place you like.” 

_ In the guest room.  _ Lucretia doesn’t know what to think. Her mind is only full of the warmth of Barry’s breath on her cheek. 

“Okay.”

* * *

He should have kissed her. 

Lup lays beside him in bed, naked and asleep and tangled in the shared sheet she’d completely stolen. Lucretia is in the guest room. His mind wanders down the hall. He wonders if she is awake too, replaying that moment over and over and over just as he is. Feeling the heat of his breath against her skin as he had felt hers. 

He tosses and turns, restless for a while. He finally focuses on Lup’s familiar sounds and settles in. When he sleeps, he dreams of the porch. She’s there beside him, and he turns just as he had before. The smallest breath catches in his throat. He moves forward with momentary fearlessness and presses his lips to hers. She gasps into the kiss, lets him pull her in by the waist, and she pushes against him. 

In the dream, she whispers: “I miss you, too.” 

* * *

Lucretia can’t sleep. She never sleeps well, but tonight is different. The guestroom is so quiet that she throws the windows open just to hear the summer night. It’s hot and humid and even in shorts with the sheets and blankets cast away, she feels sticky and restless. 

She wonders if Barry and Lup’s bedroom is cooler. If the room would welcome her. If  _ they  _ would welcome her. She’s not sure, and she’s not sure how to feel sure about anything anymore. Barry on the porch, Lup at the table… Her heart flutters with sick uncertainty. She wants them, somehow; she’s allowed herself to want them, and perhaps that was a critical mistake. Or maybe, if they miss her… If… 

If. 

She sighs and rolls onto her side, staring at the tapestry hanging on the wall. It’s adorned with birds and skulls and flames. A gift from an artisan inspired by the Story, no doubt. It’s beautiful. Intricate. Delicate. It’s almost too much to look at all at once. 

It isn’t a matter of Lup having her. Lup had already had her, with her kisses and her hands and all her endless forgiveness. A decade in isolation had changed Lup. Some of those changes, Lucretia still couldn’t understand. She’s not sure if she’ll ever be able to. 

It’s a matter of both of them. And Barry, after everything she’d done, to him, to Lup, to everyone… 

And what of Barry and Lup had done to her? 

The jab of hot anger is almost foreign now. With all her guilt and grief, all her mistakes, she’d nearly forgotten what it felt like to not blame herself. 

She wants to leave it at the door, like Barry had said. She  _ wants  _ to put it all behind them. But it can’t just be for Lup’s sake. She loves Lup, but everything between herself and Barry is just that: between herself and Barry. And on the porch, with his quiet words and his brow drawn, she thought, for just a moment, that maybe they could. What if they did move forward? Then what? Would he love her as he had all those years ago? Could she love him? 

The anger is gone as soon as it came. All that’s left are the tears that always burn, but rarely fall. It all just feels so heavy. The weighted burden of time and memory and desire just… sitting inside her like a stone. 

It’s unbearable. She gets out of bed, rubs her eyes, and leaves. She’s not sure what to do except wander. She just has to get out of the guestroom. 

She walks past their bedroom door as the soft sound of her bare feet on the carpet breaks the silence. There’s only darkness beneath the door. She wonders what would happen if she just  _ opened  _ it. For a split second, she almost feels bold enough to do so. But she doesn’t. She continues down the hall and tiptoes down the stairs. 

The kitchen is big. She can’t help but wonder if Taako’s kitchen is the same, or even bigger. She’s never been to his house. 

She trails a hand along the marble countertop and thinks about the Starblaster. The kitchen had been so small and cramped, but Taako and Lup had managed to do so much with so little. They always did. They always do. 

And in the living room, she walks silently past the tall windows and their light curtains, swaying softly as she passes. The space looks so welcoming and lived-in. So Lup and Barry. She imagines them there with everyone,  _ everyone,  _ not just Magnus and Merle and Angus who had showed up for family dinner. She aches for her family, and she aches for home. Strange, to miss a ship. They all have places to live now, places to grow, together, into themselves. Finally, after all this time. 

She sits on a well-worn armchair and rests her heavy head in her palm. Yes, all this time, and where was she? Alone in her apartment on the moon? 

There are pictures on the mantle. One of Lup and Barry, a few with Taako and Kravitz, Magnus, Angus, everyone. And then, she sees it. She stands up and crosses the room, and there it is: a drawing of the three of them on some world lost in the blur of their journey. Lup’s arm thrown around her shoulders, and Barry’s around her waist. She still remembers how it felt to be wedged between them, Barry’s sturdy presence beside her, and Lup’s fiery warmth pressed right against her skin. 

She wants all of it back. Anything they’ll give her.

She leaves the photos as she found them and wanders to the study. There’s a piano, and Lup’s violin. She almost longs for Legato. It’s not often that she wholly regrets her choices, with Fisher, Junior, the journals. But she ponders what might have been if they hadn’t stolen their Voidfish away from the mountain that day.

But for all she longs for in memory, the feeling of standing in that crowd the day of their recital never leaves her. Looking up at Lup and Barry as they played their song; a year, a  _ lifetime,  _ all culminated into a minutes-long eternity of sound. It was beautiful, and she wasn’t a part of it. She misses that time and aches from it the same, another way they had connected without her and left her alone. 

She looks around the study, and back out the door into the dining room. Their house, carefully crafted from all the pieces of their lives before and after, it’s beautiful, too. And she’s not a part of it.

She sighs quietly, releasing the knot in her throat without tears. Rests her knee on the piano bench. Plays one high, quiet note that cuts through the leaden silence. 

She closes her eyes and rests her hand on the keys lightly, as if not to make any more noise. There’s so much inside her that she can’t begin to sort it all out. Her exhaustion comes over her as a wave, but she knows she still won’t sleep, no matter how tired she feels. Her eyes ache in the dark.

She hears footsteps upstairs, probably heading for the bathroom. For a moment, she feels scared. Exposed. But she’s sure no matter who it is, they’ll be right back to sleep as soon as they hit the pillow. Barry and Lup had always had that way with sleep. With comfort. She can’t help but wonder how safe it’d feel to sleep between them again. Being with them had always made it feel… easier. Warmer. She just wants it back. She wants all of it back. So, so desperately. It’s all she can think about.

The her upswell of emotion jolts her back to alertness. She presses down into the keys and accidentally plays a few discordant notes, then pulls her hand away quickly as if she’s been burned. She withdraws from the piano and instead moves back into the dining room. 

There’s a long, polished table that she’d been welcomed to many times before for family dinners. (“Family” is a generous word, she thinks; is it family if the only others who come are so few? If half her family does anything to avoid her?) She wanders around the chairs and looks at the artwork on the walls, many different paintings from artists from everywhere, some from other worlds, some from all corners of this one. They’re all so different, wild and colorful and free, but somehow they all fit together. Lucretia has no doubt that it had been Lup who had collected this beautiful madness, and Barry who had meticulously arranged them into perfect sense.

She folds her arms across her chest, huddling into herself even further than she had been all day, and stands by the huge windows that face the backyard. The porch is empty now, the moths all gone, the light turned off for the night. 

As she rests her head against the glass, she aches with loss and longing. She looks up at her moon, down at her feet, around at this room in this house that’s not hers. She is as indescribably lonely as she has always been.

* * *

Barry runs his hand over his face, staring at this reflection in the bathroom mirror. His eyes, ringed by his restless sleep, stare back at him and his hair, sticking out in all directions. He sighs, scratches his stomach, turns the faucet and cups his hands beneath. He sips the cool water and dries his hands. He thinks of Lucretia, and wonders. 

When he leaves the bathroom, he finds the guest room cracked open, and the lights off. If he just… 

He doesn’t give himself a chance to reconsider. He peeks through the crack and, by moonlight, finds the bed empty. 

It’s not unlike Lucretia to be up in the middle of the night. She and Taako had made a habit of hovering around the ship while everyone else slept, back when. And there had been a time, a long time ago, when she’d find herself unable to sleep and instead of wandering, she’d come to the bed he and Lup shared, and they would share it with her.

He tries to understand the upheaval of everything he thought he knew before Lucretia had arrived, alone, at their door. The stirring in his chest, the last few knots untangling, the letting go. But he can’t, and perhaps he won’t, and he just sighs and closes the door and goes downstairs to find her as quietly as he can. 

The kitchen is empty, and so is the living room. But through the open space to the dining room, he sees her leaning against the window there. Her figure and the dual moons above are reflected on the table. It’s dark, but she’s silhouetted by moonlight. She looks beautiful. 

“Lucretia,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. She jumps, startled, and turns to face him. He can’t quite see her expression in the dark. “Sorry, I, uh, was just—” 

She’s quiet, arms folded over her chest. He wonders what she’s thinking. He wonders why the persistent stirring in his chest draws him into her, pulling him forward a few slow steps before he stops at the end of the table. She stands on the opposite side, just looking. 

She laughs softly. Sadly. But not unkindly. 

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asks, and she nods. “I’m sorry, I know the guest room’s not…” 

“It’s… not the guest room.” A flash of a mournful smile that disappears just as soon. “You know that.” 

He does, though he’s not sure how exactly she means. He hopes,  _ knows _ , that it’s not just the old bed, or the uncomfortable heat. That she’s as restless over this as he is. He remembers Lup, up in their bed, still fast asleep. He suddenly wishes her awake, if only to be here beside him as his anxious mind goes faster than he can think. 

Lucretia puts one hand on the table, her face just barely lit by the moons’ reflections. As the glow highlights her tired face, he can see her there, nineteen again, opposite him at the table on the Starblaster, her wide, exhausted eyes reflecting the light of the projections of his and Lup’s plans. The first wedge they’d driven. The first time they’d betrayed her and drove her away. The first of so many later. The fighting and silence had been equally unbearable, she stopped coming to their bed, stopped sharing her life with them. They’d driven her into her quarters and kept her there with their deaf ears. 

He and Lup had been just as wrong as she was. Why didn’t they listen? 

It nearly knocks the wind out of him as it all rushes back. He looks down at the moons on the table, then out above her through the window. No forgiving, no forgetting. Just this. Just Lucretia, standing there in his home, where she should have been all along. 

“I’m sorry,” Lucretia breathes in a rush. “I shouldn’t have come. I don’t know why I—” 

All at once, he walks around the table and towards her, meeting her where she stands. And before he can stop himself, before she can say another word, he takes her face into his hands. Ghosts a thumb over her cheek. And in those big tired eyes, she’s still there. Lucretia.  _ Lucy _ . The young woman he’d met over a century ago, who he’d befriended, loved, ignored, betrayed. And who had done the same to him. 

And he kisses her, unbridled and fierce, all of it coming undone for good. An overflow of everything, all of them, all this time, and between kisses, he whispers, “Stay.”

* * *

Lup wakes to the sound of footsteps beside the bed— two sets— and her heart kickstarts in her chest before she’s even fully conscious. She sits up and sees her there, Lucretia, standing next to Barry at her bedside. 

“Lucy?” Lup asks, bleary-eyed, wondering if she’s dreaming. 

“Just coming to sleep,” Barry says, feigning a casual tone. Even in the dim moonlight she can see the blush of his cheeks, the hickey on his neck. 

Lucretia crawls slowly into bed between them, trying her best to hold together. Lup could read her face and body, even after all this time. She’s nervous, emotional, overwhelmed, but  _ fuck,  _ she’s in their bed, and it’s like every impossible fantasy and every distant memory come to sleep beside her at the same time. 

“Oh, babe,” Lup says softly, taking Lucretia into her arms. “Come here.” 

Lucretia just nods, accepting Lup’s embrace. Behind Lucretia, Barry wraps his arms around her waist, his knuckles brushing against Lup’s hip. Lup looks past Lucretia and searches for her husband’s gaze, but he’s already buried in Lucretia’s neck, nuzzling and placing small kisses all over her jaw and behind her ear. Lup smiles, tears pricking her eyes for a moment, before she leans in and kisses Lucretia, too.

* * *

Barry’s hands feel new again, like the first time. Like when he knelt before Lucretia as Lup curled up beside her, his hands resting nervously on his thighs, and he had gravitated forward into her orbit and made his plea to her,  _ “Oh, gods, can I— can I touch you, Lucretia?”  _ And she had nodded, yes, yes,  _ of course,  _ yes, and his hands, soft and warm and broad, had moved over her with equal parts care and trepidation, revering her as carved precious stone, as a work of art he felt hardly worthy to touch.

And she had touched him back, just as she does now, reaching out for the comfort of his cotton shirt, the sturdiness of his chest. She sees herself then as she had crawled into Barry’s lap, wrapped herself around him as Lup rubbed circles over her back. An aching emptiness hollows her all at once as her hands roam over his chest now, wanting to pull herself into him but knowing she can’t possibly  _ deserve  _ to be that close. But he’s there, he’s looking at her with those blue eyes that crinkle beneath his glasses. He’s older now, and she is too, and for a moment she wishes her body young again. Nineteen and laid bare and trembling again as he tucks a stray curl behind her ear. 

“It’s okay, Lucretia,” Barry reminds her with tenderness that she feels entirely unworthy of. Tears spring to her eyes as he slips a hand around her lower back and pulls her in. His hands feel so safe. And Lup behind her, holding her now, pulling her into her lap until she’s pressed between them both. Those tears, she can’t stop them now. It’s home. She’s home. They feel just like home and finally  _ finally  _ she can take the weight of one hundred worlds and a single moon from her shoulders and set them down on their bedroom floor. And so the tears roll as she tucks herself into the crook of Barry’s neck, her legs tight around his waist, arms over his shoulders. Lup clings close from behind. 

“We’ve got you, sweetheart,” Lup whispers. “We’re right here.” 

* * *

Telepathy comes in handy when Lucretia is sleeping between them. Barry’s hand covers Lup’s as it rests on the impossibly soft curve of Lucretia’s hip. He remembers a time on the Starblaster where this was commonplace, where they could talk without waking her after another long night spent making love in the wee hours of some borrowed world. But it’s different now, as is everything else, it seems. Barry is slowly learning, still, that different does not mean  _ bad.  _ Different can mean  _ new.  _ It can mean  _ a second chance.  _

_ “She looks beautiful,”  _ Lup thinks, both of them gazing at her. 

_ “Yes,”  _ Barry replies, unsure of what else he can say. There’s so much in his head, so much he can’t figure out how to say to his wife. 

_ “You talked?”  _ she asks casually, but Barry knows better. Lup knows damn well they talked. He just nods, meeting her eyes. “ _ How did it go?”  _

_ “Clearly it went well,”  _ he can’t help but tease. He traces a circle over Lup’s hand.  _ “It’s okay. We’re… it’s a work in progress, but that’s still progress, right?”  _

_ “Right.”  _

Barry hesitates, sensing something she’s not saying.  _ “Are you… is this okay?”  _

_ “Yes, it’s better than okay, I just... I mean, I wasn’t expecting it to happen so…”  _

_ “Soon?”  _

Lup laughs internally. Even when only a thought, her laughter is an old favorite song.  _ “No, I figured we might end up here this weekend, but… Maybe not in the middle of the night without any pretense?”  _

Barry purses his lips. Between them, Lucretia stirs, and for a moment they both hold their breath. She settles against Barry’s chest.  _ “I found her downstairs, and we just—”  _

_ “Did you…?”  _ Lup waggles her eyebrows. 

Barry sighs aloud.  _ “No. We kissed.”  _

_ “And?”  _

It feels too intimate to speak of, the feeling of kissing Lucretia again after all this time. Even to Lup. He wants to crane his neck and kiss Lucretia again at the memory of it, but there will be time for that tomorrow, if she’ll stay. 

_ “It’s okay,”  _ he finally thinks.  _ “It’s good and I want her to stay.”  _

_ “Noted,”  _ Lup thinks back, playing with Lucretia’s curls as she sleeps.

* * *

Lucretia wakes to the soft heat of morning, the sun streaming in through the windows, still thrown wide open in a fruitless attempt for cool air. She’s tangled between both of them, their bodies pressed close, her legs woven between Lup’s and Barry’s sturdy arm around her waist. It takes her all over again, how safe it feels. How  _ right  _ it feels. 

After a little time drifting in and out of sleep, she feels Lup stirring beside her. Lup yawns with a squeak and meets Lucretia’s sleepy eyes. 

“There’s my girl,” Lup whispers, reaching out to cup Lucretia’s face in her palm. Her lopsided grin outshines even the sunlight in the room. “You’re so beautiful.” 

Lucretia can’t find words. She leans forward into Lup’s touch and kisses her, lips soft and parted and wanting.  _ Wanting.  _ She recognizes the feeling now as Lup’s kisses, hot and wet, take her over and over. From behind her, Barry shifts. Without missing a beat, his mouth is at Lucretia’s neck, hovering with heated breath, waiting for the word. 

“Barry.” She exhales his name as a prayer into Lup’s open mouth. He nuzzles, nods, kisses a trail from her ear to her shoulder. 

She swears she can hear the hum of the ship. 

* * *

The three of them had endured unthinkable loneliness, each in their own separate and torturous way. Barry, drifting; Lup, trapped; and Lucretia, miles above the earth, the moon on a string dangling between darkness and ash. It’d been hellish. The worst pain any of them had endured. 

She’d separated them. That alone should have been enough to cast her out of their hearts, but still, Lup forgave. And Barry… he accepted. And that had to be enough for now. 

They embrace in bed beside her as she watches on and she wonders how she could have ever done that to them. These two miracles of time and soul and bond who had done nothing but love her, even when they couldn’t listen. She had already owed them so much, and instead of repaying them, she stole all the rest. 

Ten years. 

Beside her, Lup reaches out and finds a handful of Lucretia’s sleeve— one of Barry’s shirts— and tugs on her to come close. 

_ Ten years without—  _

Lup kisses her and slips her tongue along Lucretia’s bottom lip. Then, Barry comes to her other side and Lucretia turns to him too, kissing him deeply. Desire rolls through her, radiating out from her spine as she arcs backwards against him. As Lup catches her bottom lip with her teeth, all the pain, all the guilt over everything she’d done starts to drift away into static. She stretches out between them and takes one of Lup’s legs between her own. As she moves forward to push against Lup, Barry follows her and curls around her. They’re both so warm and close, Lup in her big t-shirt, Barry’s soft, bare chest. Lucretia grinds against him and he hums appreciatively at her ear. 

She tells herself that even if she doesn’t deserve this, she’s going to take it. Because she’s lonely. Because she loves them. 

* * *

Barry kisses her and climbs on top of her. He’s  _ shaking  _ as he hovers over Lucretia, He tucks a curl behind her ear, caresses her cheek with the pad of his thumb. He feels the heat between her legs on his thigh without even touching her. 

“Are you— is this—” 

“Yes, Barry,” Lucretia says breathlessly, eyes closed as she writhes beneath him, needing to be touched. 

It’s like the whole world melts away. Like a hundred worlds melt away, all at once. It’s just him, just Lucretia, like tunnel vision, like nothing else. And it’s different now than it was then, when she was young and blushing and wide-eyed with lust. She’s got a hand clutching the sheets in anticipation of his touch, and the other sliding down Lup’s thigh, and he’s burning again at the sight of it. 

“Fuck, Luce—” he manages to murmur. His cock throbs, aching helplessly for her cunt and nothing else. “Can I fuck you?” 

Lucretia moans as soon as the question rushes from his mouth. “Yes.” 

He trembles as he guides his cock to her folds, parting her and pressing the tip right up against her opening. Lucretia whimpers and he feels the sound turn to liquid heat in his gut. She’s so wet that he glides up against her clit and slips over her easily, driving her wild. She moans as the underside of his cock slips over the sensitive flesh, then moves back down to ease inside her. It’s different now in so many ways, but this— the tiny gasp as he pushes into her, and the  _ feeling  _ of her, hot and slick and tight around him— is so familiar. And it feels  _ good  _ to touch her like this, to be inside her again, to lean down over her and kiss her and drag his teeth along her bottom lip and listen for the moan that he draws masterfully from her throat. 

Lup’s soft hand brushes over his back as he withdraws from Lucretia to start fucking her steadily. Lup is quiet— uncharacteristically so, even— as she pulls close to him and presses a long kiss to the bare skin of his shoulder. She doesn’t talk or tease, she just watches as Barry pushes inside Lucretia, stretches her open, reaches down to flick his thumb over her clit. 

“Lucretia,” Barry whispers, his heart racing even faster than it had been before. There’s so much that he wants to say, but none of it can take form as words. Lup slips her hand over his chest slowly, roughly brushing his nipple as she passes. Barry fucks Lucretia deeper and closes his eyes just to focus of the feeling of them both touching him, hands moving, bodies shifting, skin brushing hot skin as all of them tangle together, just as before, just as always. 

And he looks at Lup, meeting her gaze as she touches his cheek tenderly, watching her smile sweetly. “That’s good, yeah?” she asks softly, and he nods, entranced by her as he’s always been. From below him, Lucretia moans. He turns back to her and runs a hand softly over her belly. “So good,” Lup breathes, moving her hand to Lucretia’s thigh. For just a moment, she plays with Lucretia’s clit, then withdraws as Lucretia shudders with delight and, soon after, whines high at the absence of her touch. 

Barry kisses Lup with force, fucking Lucretia steadily, and Lup indulges him for just a moment before she separates. “Lup—” he stammers, but he lets her go anyway. And then Lup is beside Lucretia, then behind her, and she’s carefully arranging them so Lucretia’s head is in her lap. “Fuck,” Barry breathes, and it feels like fire in his throat. It’s all so much at once; everything from before, everything he remembered and forgot and remembers once more again now as he looks at them together. Lup strokes Lucretia’s hair as she squirms in her lap, murmuring smiling praise as she strokes her cheek. 

Lucretia’s eyes are squeezed shut. She thrusts her hips forward and twists just enough to bury her face in Lup’s thigh to muffle her cries that grow in volume with each burning moment that passes between them. 

“That’s so good, Lucy,” Lup says so softly that Barry almost doesn’t hear. It’s been so long since he’s seen them like this, Lucretia unraveling under Lup’s hands while he fucks her. It overwhelms him all at once and rocks through him as one electric rush of desire. He pulls away from her, panting and shaking, his hands on either of her parted thighs, and collects himself. Lucretia’s whines grow so desperate that it almost sounds like she could cry. Lup shushes her gently, rolling a nipple between her fingers and smiling up at Barry when Lucretia pushes her chest forward into the touch. “Don’t leave my girl hanging, dear.” 

“I—” Barry can barely form words. “If I— Lup, I need you to—” 

“Gonna tag me in?” 

Lucretia moans, eyes open now and darting between the two of them. “Please,” she pants, but that’s about all she can manage. Barry follows her gaze down to his cock, twitching and untouched there above her. He  _ wants  _ to fuck her senseless and just finish right there, but there’s so much more to do. So much he’s missed. 

So he nods to Lup and they swap places, but instead of cradling Lucretia in his lap like he’d intended to, Lucretia extends a hand and strokes his cock. He swallows a moan and sets his jaw and tries his best to stay away from the orgasm that he  _ knows  _ is right there, waiting. But it’s  _ Lucretia.  _ She’s here, finally here, in their bed, laying there naked and open for them just like he’d imagined. Just like he  _ remembers.  _

Just as Lup leans down and hooks Lucretia’s knees over her shoulders and lays her tongue over her cunt, Lucretia eases him into her mouth. She moans and he feels it all the way up through his spine. And fuck,  _ fuck,  _ “ _ Fuck _ ,” he groans and runs his hand over her forehead. Below, Lup’s head bobs as she tongues Lucretia, then pulls away with a wet smack. Lucretia pulls away from Barry, too, but keeps his cock steady in her palm. 

“L-Lup,” she pants. Every breath she takes shakes in her throat. “Lu, Lu please.  _ Please _ .” 

“Anything you want, babe.” And Lup’s smile is so devilish that it makes Barry throb. This, all of this, it’s so much, too much, and every inch of him is electrified with want. One of Lup’s hands goes to work on Lucretia as Lucretia takes his cock back into her mouth and he can’t, he just can’t, he has to— 

“Luce—” he tries to say, but he’s not even sure if her name leaves him before he takes a fistful of her hair and tugs hard. She separates from him with a huge gasp, her hips pushing up to fuck Lup’s face, then takes him as deep as she can. “L—L—” but it’s hopeless. It builds inside him and crests almost immediately. He struggles to keep his eyes open so he can watch them, Lup fingering and sucking Lucretia, and Lucretia pushing Lup’s face to her cunt with one hand. She bucks into Lup’s grasp and that’s all it takes, he just  _ comes,  _ then and there, so abrupt that he can’t even pull away. His legs buckle and he throbs in her mouth, spilling down her throat, and she swallows easily. 

She breaks away with another huge gasp and all he can do is lean back on his calves, kneeling there and trying to catch his breath, totally spent as he cups her face in his hand. She looks absolutely drunk with lust, her eyes glassy and heavy-lidded, her mouth open, lips and chin sheened with saliva and cum. He swipes a thumb along her bottom lip and she takes it into her mouth hungrily. Lup adds another finger inside Lucretia and she cries out, her eyes twisting shut, her face still in Barry’s hand as she cries out. Lup laps at her clit and Lucretia comes hard. 

“Yes, oh, yes,” Barry breathes. Lucretia struggles to open her eyes to look at him. “Lucretia…” 

Lucretia wails his name, then Lup’s, then just a ragged cry that fills the room as her orgasm takes her.

“Lu,” Lucretia pleads softly when she finally comes down, reaching out one arm to ask for Lup’s embrace. 

“Oh, babe,” Lup breathes. She leaves her place between her legs and slides into bed next to Lucretia, slipping her long arms around her and hugging tight. She kisses Lucretia’s forehead. 

Then, Lucretia wordlessly reaches one hand out towards Barry. He lowers himself down to meet them and accepts her embrace. He reaches over to Lup with what little strength he has left and parts her legs, finds her dripping for them,  _ both of them,  _ and the sweet shock sends warmth and energy back into his body. Lucretia takes Lup back into a long, hot kiss, languid and lusty in its pace. And then she’s panting into Lucretia’s open mouth, saying both of their names, reaching for whatever she can get a grip on. Barry dips one finger inside her, then two, and Lucretia lowers her face and takes a nipple into her mouth, and then Lup is shouting for them, loud, urgent cries that fill the room, fill the late morning with electricity and truth and  _ rightness,  _ that yes: they’re here, now, and nothing else, not past, not future, matters. 

* * *

Lucretia wakes sandwiched between them in the afternoon, the warmth of their bodies almost too much. She leans forward and kisses the base of Lup’s neck. Her ear. Her cheek. And by the time she reaches her mouth, Lup is awake and waiting for her with kisses of her own. Barry shifts from behind them and they giggle. Lup presses a playful finger to Lucretia’s lips. 

“Don’t you ever sleep?” Barry whispers with a smile, nuzzling Lucretia’s neck. For a moment she’s dizzy with how impossible it is. How, if asked a week ago, Lucretia would have said this could never, ever be. And yet, his mouth is on her, and then Lup’s is too, and then their hands, and then a tickle of fingers, and she laughs. She laughs and laughs and they dissolve into a shaking, giggling pile. “Oh, Luce,” Barry murmurs, low and warm and still somehow hungry. 

“You’ll have to come stay more often, hmm?” Lup offers. Her eyes are full of all the bright hope in the world. 

“Yes,” Lucretia says with conviction, because she knows she will. “But first, today…” 

“Lunch,” Lup says, keeping her promise. Lucretia smiles. 

“Breakfast?” Barry suggests. 

“It’s the afternoon.” Lup tips his chin gently with two fingers, teasing him with her eyes. Lucretia wants them both to stay in bed like this forever. But lunch sounds good too. 

“Snack. Snack in bed first.” Barry chuckles and gives Lucretia a tender kiss on the cheek that fills her with surprise and heat. She turns to kiss his mouth, once, twice, but then he pulls away with a breath. "I'll be back, you two hang tight." He pulls on his jeans and heads for the door. "Don't have too much fun without me." 

"No promises," Lup says with a smirk, stealing her own kiss from Lucretia. 

Lucretia lays there, winded, dizzy from the kisses from them both. As Barry closes the door behind him, without another thought, her eyes fill with big tears. 

It only takes Lup a moment to notice before she draws a breath and takes Lucretia’s face into her hands. “Oh, babe,” she whispers, nuzzling her nose to Lucretia’s. “What is it? Are you—” 

Lucretia nods, trying to reach up to wipe her face. Lup wipes her tears away instead. Lucretia laughs through her tears, shakes her head, looks away from Lup’s steady gaze. “I don’t know!” Lucretia exclaims, sounding watery and weak. “I don’t know. Do you think— do you think it’s okay?” 

Lup furrows her brow as Lucretia looks up at her. “Is what okay?” 

Lucretia laughs again, overwhelmed with the reality of it all. “Barry? I don’t— I know it’s stupid, Lup, I know it’s so…” Tears roll down her face. “We… talked, and then, now…” She motions to the empty side of their bed where Barry had been. “I’m scared he still thinks… I just can’t believe that we’re all here.” 

For a second, Lucretia spots a small glimmer of tears in Lup’s gaze, but they’re gone with a blink. 

“Yeah, Luce,” Lup says softly. She nods and wipes more tears from Lucretia’s face. “I can’t believe it either. But it’s okay. It’s good. I promise.” 

Barry returns with leftovers from yesterday’s dinner and three glasses of water, a mage hand helping him carry it all. “Alright,” he says. “Move over, I’m back.” 

Lucretia takes two of the glasses, hands one to Lup, and makes room for Barry to sit beside her. When sets the food down on the bedside table and leans against her, Lucretia is struck by how at ease she feels. How casual and intimate it is, how it’s just like falling back to where they had once been, before… And no, she doesn’t have to go there right now, just here in this moment, Lup and Barry at either side, enjoying each other’s company. Barry kisses Lucretia’s cheek and she smiles, sniffs, tries to hold back the wave of emotion that crests in her and threatens to tip her back into tears all over again. 

“Oh, Luce,” Barry breathes, taking the plate from her lap so he can embrace her. “Hey, we’ve got you.” 

Lucretia nods through tears, blinking them away so she can attempt a smile. “I know,” she says, and she means it. 


End file.
